After a grand jury announced it would not indict anyone in the case surrounding the death of Sandra Bland, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders issued a statement calling for "reform[ing] a very broken criminal justice system."

"Sandra Bland should not have died in police custody," Sanders said in the statement. "There's no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman."

In June, 28-year-old Bland was pulled over in Waller County, Texas for not signaling a lane change, then arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Three days later, she was found dead in her jail cell, in what the sheriff's department claimed was death by suicide.

Many of the details around Bland's death remain murky. In July, Daily Kosfound reports that detailed past accusations of racism against the Waller County Sheriff.

"Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith, who made the first public comments about Bland's in-custody death, was suspended for documented cases of racism when he was chief of police in Hempstead, Texas, in 2007," Daily Kosreported. "After serving his suspension, more complaints of racism came in, and Smith was actually fired as chief of police in Hempstead."